Principles for Relationships from God's Word by Claudio Consuegra

Mom’s brain

Then the woman whose son was living spoke to the king, for she yearned with compassion for her son. 1 Kings 3:26 (NKJV)

The artist Sarah Walker once told writer Adrienne LaFrance[i] that becoming a mother is like discovering the existence of a strange new room in the house where you already live. Women to change the moment they become pregnant. Some of the changes are very obvious – their body changes, their appetite changes, their hormones change. But other changes are not as outwardly evident . . . because they are neurological in nature.

According to LaFrance, “scientists are only recently beginning to definitively link the way a woman acts with what’s happening in her prefrontal cortex, midbrain, parietal lobes, and elsewhere. Gray matter becomes more concentrated. Activity increases in regions that control empathy, anxiety, and social interaction. On the most basic level, these changes, prompted by a flood of hormones during pregnancy and in the postpartum period, help attract a new mother to her baby. In other words, those maternal feelings of overwhelming love, fierce protectiveness, and constant worry begin with reactions in the brain.”

Researchers are mapping a pregnant woman’s brain to try to understand why so many new mothers experience serious anxiety and depression. It is estimated that one in six women suffers from postpartum depression, and many more develop behaviors like compulsively washing hands and obsessively checking whether the baby is breathing. As brain researcher Pilyoung Kim explains, “Mothers actually report very high levels of patterns of thinking about things that they cannot control. They’re constantly thinking about baby. Is baby healthy? Sick? Full?”

The brain changes prepare the mother to receive, protect and nurture her yet unborn child. God programed women’s brains this way, what we call a “mother’s instinct,” so she would surround her child with what he/she would need to survive from their earliest age.

Father God, thank your for designing mothers in such a way that they begin to care for their children from before they are even born. May all children born, especially our own, enjoy such loving care as comes from You, our Father and Creator.